Like a Red, Red Rose
by Ruuger
Summary: While still in hospital, Reyes gets a visitor. A missing scene for Audrey Pauley. Follmer & Reyes UST, implied Doggett & Reyes.


**Spoilers: **Just "Audrey Pauley", although the story makes more sense if you've also seen "Provenance"/"Providence". 

**Author's notes: **Huge thanks to sue866 for the beta.

* * *

"I heard you were doing better."

He was holding a bouquet of red roses. A full dozen, she knew without counting. Always the romantic, even at the most inopportune moments.

Monica put down the book she had been reading and took the flowers from Brad. John had been with her the whole morning and had only just left to get something to eat. The timing of Brad's arrival made her wonder how long he had been standing in the corridor, waiting for the other man to leave.

"Thank you, Brad. They're beautiful."

She brought the crimson flowers to her face and breathed in their scent, remembering all the times she had found a single red rose waiting on her desk when she came to work.

"Thank you," she repeated, unable to come up with anything else, and gave the flowers back to Brad, gesturing towards the vase. "Would you mind..."

She could just as well have put the flowers in the vase herself, but she wanted to buy time to make up her mind on how she felt about Brad's sudden visit. A part of her believed he had come out of genuine concern for her, but the part of her that had never forgiven his betrayal years ago refused to believe he didn't have a hidden agenda. And then there were the roses.

It was so very Brad to bring a dozen red roses to an ex-lover, just as it had been so very Brad to greet her with a passionate kiss when they had hardly seen each other for four years.

Arrogant. Presumptuous. Spontaneous. Romantic. Brad.

Not quite sure whether to ask him to stay or leave, she watched him arrange the flowers, noticing how he made sure his roses were covering the ones already in the vase. John had brought the old roses, and after two days they were already starting to wither. She wanted to say something, but didn't, and simply watched.

"Please, sit down," she finally told him, her curiosity getting the better of her. She could sense something odd in him, something in the way he moved, in the way he took far longer than necessary to arrange the flowers, something slightly wrong. If she didn't know him better, she would have thought he was nervous.

Brad smiled, gave the flowers one last touch and sat down - not on the chair next to the bed, but on the bed itself. Far enough not to make her uncomfortable, but close enough nevertheless.

"I can get you transferred, Monica."

It was not the opening line she had expected.

"What do you mean?" she asked, unable to tell if he was serious or joking.

"I can get you transferred to any department of the Bureau, any division, any field office. I know people. You don't have to work in the X-Files."

She was stunned by his proposition. He knew what working in the X-Files meant to her. He knew it, and nevertheless here he was, suggesting that he could help her to give up the job she had dreamed about since the academy.

"Why would I want to leave the X-Files?"

Brad glanced at the door, an uncharacteristically nervous tick that made her even more suspicious that something was going on.

"I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I was in a car accident, Brad, it had nothing to do with the X-Files."

"No, it didn't, but don't try telling me the X-Files is a safe place to work. I've seen the reports, and I've heard the stories. A case doesn't go by without one of you ending up in the hospital. The X-Files is a dangerous place, Monica, and Doggett can't protect you."

"He doesn't need to. I can take care of myself."

"And I'm not saying that you can't. I'm only saying that there are better places to work in the bureau. Safer places. Think about your career, if nothing else. The basement office is not just a career dead end, it's a career suicide."

"I don't want to think about my career. I could have gone back to New Orleans after helping Dana and John last year, but I chose to stay because this is what I want to do. What I have always wanted to do."

He stood up so fast that he almost knocked over the bedside table.

"You don't understand."

"What is it that you think I don't understand? What are you not telling me?"

Again the nervous glance, and she began to wonder what he was afraid of. At first she had assumed he was keeping an eye on the door in case John came back, but now she could sense that he was truly afraid of something.

He opened his mouth to say something, but didn't, and just stood in the middle of the room, looking at her.

"Please, Brad. Tell me what's going on."

He sighed, sat back down on the bed again and looked her in the eyes.

"I only asked because I care."

"I know, Brad, and I appreciate it, but I can't-"

"You can't leave Doggett," he interrupted her, and nodded slowly, his voice quiet and sad. "I understand."

"No, you don't, and neither do I. What's going on, Brad. What aren't you telling me?"

He was silent for a long time, scanning the room, studying every inch of it, glancing at the door every few seconds. She was silent too, once again debating whether to ask him to leave or stay. Then suddenly he leaned closer to her, moving up on her bed until his face was only inches away from hers.

At first she thought he was going to kiss her, and perhaps she was even hoping he would. She prepaired to ward him off - not so much because she didn't want him as because she was afraid of John walking in on them - and when Brad's lips passed hers and she realised he only wanted to whisper something to her, she felt oddly disappointed.

His voice was quiet, so quiet that she almost didn't hear his words.

"I can't protect you, Monica, if you don't let me," he said. "This goes further up than you could ever imagine. It's only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose and after that..."

His voice faded into a sigh.

"I can't make you take my offer, can I," he said with a sad smile, and then continued before she had the chance to say anything. "Be careful Monica. You have no idea what you have gotten yourself into."

He stood up and straightened his jacket.

"I think I'd better leave."

"Brad, please don't-" she tried to say, but he interrupted her again, not looking back as he walked away.

"See you at work, Monica."

When a patient aide walked past the door a few minutes later, Monica asked her to give Brad's flowers to some other patient. She did, however, keep the card and hid it between the pages of the paperback book John had brought her from the hospital kiosk. She had just closed the book when she heard John return.

"Any good?" he asked, nodding towards paperback she was still holding.

She looked up at John, and then at the book. It was a good book, and one that she had been wanting to read for some time already, but it wasn't as good as she had hoped it would be.

"It's okay," she said and watched a petal fall off from one of the dying roses on the bedside table.


End file.
